Even among partners, Facebook is making life increasingly difficult for tech titans, and particularly so in area of talent retention. Case in point: Microsoft is losing Carolyn Everson -- who led global ad sales across Bing, MSN, and Windows Live -- to Facebook. "Apparently, it's not only in Google's pond where Facebook fishes for talent," quips BoomTown's Kara Swisher. "The move will surely cause some tensions with the software giant, which is both a prominent partner of and investor in Facebook, especially since Everson was only hired at Microsoft last June after a long search." "Employees have regularly …

If their aim is influence, anyone who's spent the past few years feverishly racking up tweets and Twitter followers should take a breather. Why? Because it isn't the "most prolific tweeters or those with [the] most followers" who are steering the conversation, according to Bernardo Huberman, director of HP Lab's Social Computing Research Group. On the contrary, as ReadWriteWeb points out, "long-standing status as a source of information and news," is what mostly determines Twitter's Trending Topics. As such, "We found that mainstream media play a role in most trending topics and actually act as feeders of these …

Holding the promise the superior search technology and artificial intelligence, the world is watching closely this week as IBM's Watson computer challenges human opponents to a little game of "Jeopardy!" Putting the contest in its historical context, The Boston Globe reports that, "The Watson system, the result of four years of work by IBM researchers around the world, is something of an heir to the company's Deep Blue computer, which defeated world champion Garry Kasparov in a chess match in the late 1990s." The Watson project was designed to test whether a computing system could rival a human's …

Expanding rapidly into new and rival territories, Facebook seems to have replaced Google as the business world's chief disruptor. "It is disrupting the businesses of established companies like Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. and putting even more Internet firms on notice," writes The Wall Street Journal. Indeed, "The social network is a potential rival in electronic payments to eBay Inc.'s PayPal, while partnerships Facebook is cementing with smartphone makers set the stage for competition with Apple Inc." Companies from the Valley to the Alley are therefore agonizing over whether or not to work with Facebook. "Facebook is both a …

Likely as a symbolic gesture, AOL's impassioned CEO Tim Armstrong has invested roughly $10 million in 477,000 shares of AOL stock. According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Armstrong bought the shares at an average price of $20.97 each last Friday. As The Los Angeles Times note, "He nearly doubled his stake in the company to 4% after the stock dropped on news of AOL's $315-million acquisition of online news and opinion site Huffington Post." Just like Armstrong's big bet on HuffPo, some might interpret the investment as a desperate ploy. Indeed, "Armstrong's enthusiasm for …

Making good on its promise to rid the world of "content farms" one piece of worthless content at a time, Google just introduced a Chrome extension that lets users block specific web sites from appearing in search results. What's more, Google Principal Engineer Matt Cutts says the search giant will analyze blocked sites, and likely use that information to alter search rankings. "What Cutts means is Google is asking for users to help weed out content farms, which he defined as 'sites with shallow or low-quality content,'" eWeek explains. "Content farms, including those such as Demand Media, have …

Multimedia browser plugin Cooliris has secured $9.6 million in Series C financing from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, along with Deutsche Telekom's T-Venture, The Westly Group and DAG Ventures. The company, which presents online photos and videos in a more visually stimulating style, has now raised $27.6 million in funding. "Not surprisingly, the company plans on using the new financing to further strategic partnerships and product innovation," reports TechCrunch. Not wasting any time, Cooliris is releasing the latest version of its LiveShare group photo-sharing app, which lets users find and share content with their Facebook friends through the …

YouTube has partnered with LG Electronics to help users capture 3D images and video via mobile devices and upload it all directly to the Web. To get in on the 3D action, consumers will need LG's new Optimus 3D smartphone, which uses Google's Android mobile operating system, and features a dual-lens camera for 3D image and video capture. According to PCWorld, "That video can be directly uploaded to YouTube via a dedicated YouTube 3D video application." YouTube, for its part, has actually been playing in the 3D space for some time. Google's video hub began offering a place …

Future Android devices will be able to instantly stream TV shows and movies from Netflix thanks to new Snapdragon mobile processors from Qualcomm. "Instant streaming is the hottest new way to get movies into the hands of users," writes VentureBeat. To date, however, "It has been possible on connected home machines such as video game consoles, Blu-ray players, and connected TVs ... But mobile devices haven't really been capable of streaming movies and TV shows in a reliable way." If Qualcomm can deliver, Android users will be able to watch their Neflix movies on the fly without having to worry …

Making ad-friendly smartphones accessible to far more consumers, Apple is reportedly working on a line of less-expensive iPhones. With the move, Apple is "moving to accelerate sales of its smartphones amid growing competition," reports The Wall Street Journal. Indeed, Google's Android has emerged as a top mobile operating system thanks to its wide availability on a range of cheaper devices. Because of the lower price, carries including AT&T and now Verizon will likely be able to subsidize most or all of the phone's retail price -- thus "putting the iPhone in the same mass-market price range as rival smartphones," sources …